Before the Rainbow

Lament Of A Bushfaller *

22 Lament Of A B Bushfaller* I am away from you Not because I like it. I am away from you Because the music I danced To was changing, The rhythms unstable, A hole in the palace drum. I am away from you to search For steadier rhythms, Yours my dear I failed to change And my life in danger from Acolytes of the palace musician. See then my departure darling As clawing at straws for survival Instead of a betrayal Instead of failing love. Remember I have dipped In your waters and know the depths To my new shores a stranger you are. Judge me not in the distance Then, my rhythms are new and Strange, so anew I begin. Consider me not changed But a dancer with alien steps To which I must yield Or else perish again. 23 From the distance my new Rhythms are pleasant to the ears Come into the dance and see For yourself: The steps are imposed; Nothing spontaneous, a Stranger to yourself you become Again clutching at straws In the name of this dream. More often than not it is A bushfaller’s nightmare. The hours you must put in, The Western Union calls From the native shores And you dare not fail. You my friend must know How hard for me the one to be Doing all to stay connected While all you do is nag, “Now a bushfaller he has Forgotten me, our good days.” I have not! For you I yearn every day Fatherland, For the once calm rhythms at home I long, but how could I stay? The old man needs a cane A role I will otherwise not fulfill. Outside bushfallism: See me not as estranged By choice – the music, the music 24 Of bushfallism. To listen to Is not to know To dance to it is to discover The truth – a challenge!!! *In Cameroon today, a “bushfaller” is anyone who, for whatever reason, has abandoned the national territory to reside, temporarily or on a permanent basis, beyond the continent of Africa, especially in the West. ...